The Great Imagining – a collaboration with Free Art School E20
50 Celebration Avenue, Stratford E20 1DB

PRIVATE VIEW: Thursday 30 November 6 – 9pm
EXHIBITION OPEN: 1 December – 7 January
Friday – Sunday 12 – 6pm
(Closed for Christmas 21 Dec – 31 Dec)
Kindly supported by Get Living

To coincide with the climate negotiations at COP 28 during the month of December, the community of Newham and the boroughs around East London will be invited to explore and engage with the huge issues facing us both locally and globally through a series of experimental talks and workshops. These will be facilitated by artists and experts who will empower the audience to respond and take action. Over the course of the month, The Great Imagining team and special guests will be running a range of live workshops and talks which will become filmed digital resources for The Great Imagining Thinklopedia (set of online resources). These will include skills training sessions will be covering topics such as Systems Thinking, Futures Literacy, Design Thinking, Carbon Literacy, How we Think and How We Collaborate. There will be learning sessions – a range of topics covering everything about our world and how we live and how we could move towards a greener, fairer, wiser future. There will also be creative opportunities for visitors of all ages to respond to these skills, learning through journalism, art, design, film, puppetry theatre, museum curation and dance. The space will be temporarily transformed into a playful interactive learning space that will feel like a giant board game. There will be a Symposium Lounge, Editor’s Office and a series of ideas boards and workshop spaces with a photographic, film and TV studio.

How will it work?
The space will be divided into zones which will cover Land and Sea, Culture, Society, Technology with a Symposium Lounge in the centre. There will be a cinema and a soundscape. The days will be themed according to topics arising from this structure and will include specific themes such as Ancestors Day, TGI Radicles young person’s takeover day and Carbon Literacy Training Day. All symposium and workshop sessions will be bookable by Eventbrite for participants. There will be food and refreshments available on all days.

What is the history of The Great Imagining
For the last 15 years, they have created educational experiences for young people as young persons arts and education charity The House of Fairy Tales, working in partnership with over 50 institutions including the National Trust, Tate Modern, Royal Shakespeare Company, Edinburgh Arts Festival, and the Royal Horticultural Society. With The Great Imagining, they are now embarking on their most ambitious and comprehensive programme yet. The Great Imagining is youth-led, with their core team supported by a network of over 600 artists, creatives, scientists and engineers, all sharing the dream of a greener, fairer, wiser world. They are a growing team of committed professional, creative people of all ages backgrounds, perspectives and interests, who are stubborn optimists about the potential for humans to imagine, learn, design and create a greener, fairer, wiser world. We are artists, educators, scientists, designers, engineers, philosophers and dreamers who believe a better world is possible and that young people are the catalysts for transformation. They value open minds, the wonder of nature, curiosity about the universe and the playfulness of being alive. They believe humans learn most effectively through imagination, systems thinking, scientific methods & cultural curiosity. Transformative learning inspires joy and action. This kind of learning empowers confident future leaders who will take care of our ecosystems for future generations.